Despite the fact that Chinese government officials are talking about large scale new sow projects in the country, in 2017 China's livestock decline by 2 mill. sows due to tough environmental regulations and rural to urban registration. The lack of domestic supply is reflected by the prices of hogs: $2.07/kg liveweight.

"The extremely high prices are the real indicator of supply relative to demand. We expect hog prices to stay high through 2018. China will continue to import a significant amount of pork throughout 2018", said Jim Long, president-CEO of Genesus Inc., in his latest global report on the pork industry.

Analysts predicted last year that China's imports of pork could reach up to 3 mill. t, but the demand was not as high as they expected. Nevertheless, a Rabobank report released in February mentioned that China's pork imports could pick up again in 2018.